1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for limiting the availability of computational resources to a device to stimulate a user of the device to apply necessary updates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many system and security patches to a computer system require that the user of the computer system reboot the system. An update program may prompt the user to reboot their system so that the update may be applied. Often the user may ignore notifications to reboot and continue operating without the benefit of the installation of the updates, which could leave the system vulnerable to security risks in situations were the update is to address a security vulnerability.
Certain systems provide an upper bound on how long the user may go without applying the patch to their system and upon reaching this upper bound automatically reboot the system. Automatic reboot may interrupt ongoing processes and cause the loss of data.
In a network environment, a network access control component may require that client computers apply all necessary patches before they are allowed to access the network managed by the network access control component. In a Network Access Control environment, the client system may send an enhanced router implementing network access control a list of the operating system level/patches and other relevant security attributes of the client when the client attempts to connect to the network via the router. The router may determine whether the client is compliant with the security policy of the company and, if not, either not allow the client to connect or only provide the client access to a virtual network for the purposes of downloading and installing operating system patches to bring the client up to compliance.